I got our first issue of Workamper News in the mail today as part of the special they have for 2 sample issues and I saw an ad for oil field security gate guard. I cannot find a lot of information on these jobs other than the person is an employee and lives out of their RV at the site. Maybe not the best place to be parked, but it's a pretty good salary. Is anyone familiar with these types of jobs and if families are allowed? The one description I found didn't specifically say single person only and there's no website, just a phone number. I don't really want to bug the company when we're just gathering info right now.

This is so funny. I actually woke up thinking this morning that you should check with TXYellowRose. I believe they just finished a 1 month security assignment at a non-working plant near Darlington, SC. Didn't sound like a bad deal at all.

Many years ago. in my single life, I worked in the oil and gas fields of south Texas. Many of the well sites used gate guards at that time that lived out of their RV's. The only draw back would be the site that operate 24 hrs. All of the drilling rigs do operate 24 hrs. a day and it is not unusual to have to get up in the middle of the night to let equipment through a gate. I have woke up many a guard in my time! Just something to think about plus the locations can be very remote so may require boon-docking.

We are not working an oilfield gatekeeping job - nope, no way, no how!

Although I have never been a oilfield gatekeeper, I have visited oilfields in my previous career.

Those assignments typically do not have hookups and are dirty, dusty, noisy, etc. The gatekeeper team must have one person on site 24/7. While working is not a problem, these oilfield jobs can be very, very busy and did I mention noisy?

The locations are very remote and I would be concerned about damage to my rig getting to/setting up at the location. True, there may be a "good" one out there, but I'm not going lookin' for it!

I would say that it certainly isn't for a family. As the others said, it would be noisy and dirty, and likely isolated. If you needed LPG or anything else, you would likely have to drive miles to get what you needed.

You would likely not have any "good" water and any water that might be supplied by the oil company might come from a questionable source.

Back many, many years ago, I used to deliver fuel to a few rigs in the Oklahoma Panhandle. Some of the roughnecks were OK, but even if they were nice and polite, they still might have a tendency to drink and cursing was constant. Since many of the ones I knew were pretty nice, I was constantly having to decline beer.

I guess family is the wrong word. I guess spouse is what I meant, since just me and my husband will be the ones traveling. He's the one with the security background.

I found some more info on a couple of other boards and found these jobs can be very different, depending on the site. Some are 24/7, some aren't. The one I saw advertised was a 24/7 job, but part of the reason to live this type of life is for travel. Can't do much traveling when you can't go far or go anywhere together.

Still, we are discussing it as a possible way to make a good bit of money over the winter. I don't think I'd do it for an entire year. As I looked through the ads in Workamper News I see a lot of them just want to barter over a site. Since we cannot do that, we have to find something that pays.

It's good, though, that we're seeing what is out there and getting some more ideas. I'm trying to think of ways besides Workamping to make an income, a combination of self-employment income and workamping, that will keep us going.

One other consideration regarding security jobs and traveling as a husband & wife ... Even though your husband has experience in "security" you most likely were not involved in your husband's work. Accepting a security job in an RV park places you right in the middle of where your husband is responsible for "keeping the peace" should any incident occur. This may include some upset RVers who are told by your husband about "quiet hours" or "excessive partying." Not only does this involve your husband, but since you'll be living in the RV park and the RVers know your husband lives in the RV park, this may involve you meeting these people at some point. Certainly different than a security job where your husband leaves any upset individual away from where you live and your potential involvement.

Well, Tim, a camphosting job like what you described is totally different than the gate guard jobs in Texas and Oklahoma from what I'm researching. We do plan to do some camphosting as well so I'm sure a situation like you described will come up and when it does we'll handle it.

On the gate guard front, I had a flash last night of our rig in the middle of nowhere in South Texas near the Mexican border and the "what ifs" came over me. What if there is a medical emergency? What if a group of immigrants try to cross nearby? So while this might be something I keep in mind for the future, we will definitely not go into it without speaking with someone who is doing it, has done it, a spouse who has done it, and the company itself.

Since I live in Southern Arizona, I know all too well the issues with security and the US/Mexican border. Any security job that's along the Southwest Border should certainly raise concerns regarding the activities of the Mexican Drug Trafficking Organizations. If you want to send me a private message me I can furnish additional information on this topic.

Check out Kit and Jerry's blog http://www.kitandjerry.com/index.htm they are "gate guarding" right now and write pretty much every day on their experiences. This should give you a good insight into the work and life style.

To me it does not look like a bad way to make some $$ if you can both put up with the "inconvienances" that come with the job.

I'm not sure I could do it for months on end but maybe 8-10 weeks would not be too bad.

There is a gas well right near where I work in Coppell, Texas. It is essentially right in town, as are many of the gas wells around here. I have seen three or four different RVs at the site. I assume the owners are working as security gate guards. At this particular site, I have seen that a generator and water tank are supplied. I have also seen that it is very dusty and dirty. As well, there are strong lights on at the site all night long. If I had to judge this type of work by this one site, I would not be interested. But there may well be other sites that are nicer than this one.

I went back and read ALL the posts previously made on this topic. I must say that I am amazed and surprised at some of the responses. I also worked in and around the oil field for 17 years; not as a roughneck but as an engineer. Oil field workers have had to change 'big time' in order to work for politically correct drilling and oil companies these days. The people here are very hard workers, NOT allowed to drink, or 'cuss', or smoke anywhere around the rig. We have almost completed 2 different sites now (total of 6 wells drilled) and not had any problems.

Looking at the "What If's?"

In S. Texas we had some of them illegal immigrants come close to us asking for food and water. Now, this is a personal preference on whether you choose to help them out or not, but they will NOT approach you or your RV or even come into the gate you are guarding. It is your option to call the Border Patrol or throw some food and drink their way or just say no, and tell them to be on their way.

Sickness/Injury?

My wife had a kidney stone on day 2 of this encampment. Took her to local hospital (town of 6500) ER room where they did a CatScan and found the stone. They treated her with pain meds, etc. Anyways, even small towns have decent medical care and larger cities are nearby. Also, just FYI, there are more police in and along the border, per capita, than anywhere else in this country. Want to feel safe? Work in S. Texas....LOL.

We are current Gate Guards so if you would like to know how things are NOW, TODAY, then feel free to ask. A lot of changes have come about since the posts of almost a year ago.

Well, since we have to have a Noncommissioned Security Officer license to do this I guess gate security is what they want to call it. We had to learn to 'observe' anything out of the ordinary, deal with maybe an unruly rig hand, or just log people in or out. They can call us whatever they want provided they send a paycheck on time...LOL.

What company are you working for and where would this 'relief' area be located?

i really do not care what they call me as long as they pay us. i just wanted people to know it's not like we carry a gun or are here to watch over the place like at a industrial plant guard.who is responsible to verify who is comming and going. we are 50 miles north of larado tex. on hy83. there are new gates going in every week

There are always 2 sides to every story. For us, the 1099 is actually an advantage. Since we still have a stix and brix, it lets us use much of our everyday living expenses as business expenses. But then I've been doing the self-employed thing for a decade now and am pretty familiar with the process.

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Carol

Carol Kerr

Realtor specializing in RV and 55+ Communities in the Rio Grande Valley

For us getting a 1099 is the deal breaker. Just don't need the hassle of being self-employed.

Well, for us I prefer the 1099. I put a little aside in savings to pay taxes if needed. We find ourselves being in a lower tax bracket with all of the expenses you can legally write off, so why let the gov't. hold my money and issue a refund. I send them a small check and they just 'go away' until next year.

You either get paid more and pay the taxes or you get paid less and the employeer pays the taxes. It's all the same unless you are trying to avoid paying taxes. The other option, of course, is not to work and not get paid at all and then you don't owe a darn thing!

I don't see the issue at all with a 1099. Unless you can't save the money that you "might" owe. There is very little to NO additional paperwork, and what there is seems trivial to me.....been there done that, and I sure would not turn down an otherwise good job because of a 1099.

The problem is not the 1099 or W2...the problem is states that will tax ALL income for the time period you worked in their state. People with retirement income that normally wouldn't pay income tax on their retirement income could end up being taxed by the state that the 1099 or W2 is issued from...

buy law you only pay income tax in your domicile state, where you earned it has knothing to do with it. whether or not you were a 1099 or a regular emplyee.

Are you sure about that?

Having worked in a number of states and made substantial income in those states, our experience is this...

Your federal income tax is your federal income tax period -- regardless of state.

You MAY be required to pay state income tax on income earned in a state you work in. It seems to depend on the amount of money earned and the amount of time you are in the state. Generally it is not a large $ amount of taxes and we don't worry much about it. It's one more form to fill out and not that big of a deal. It's actually a bit easier with a 1099 because we can often show minimal actual earnings from that state after expenses. With a W2 income tax for that state is withheld and you have to file a state return to get that money back.

In our experience you are not required to pay state income taxes on $ not earned in that state just because you happened to be there or earn some other income there.

__________________

Carol

Carol Kerr

Realtor specializing in RV and 55+ Communities in the Rio Grande Valley

we were audited by az a while back. we had been paying incometax in the states we worked in, we were employees so there was withholding tax takenout. we filed in each state they kept th tax they wanted and refunded the rest (not very much).this went on 5 yrs. arizona required us to pay incomtax on ALL the income for those yrs regardless of where we earnded it. we were not able to get our money back from the states we payed the taxes in. they all had one reason or another to not refund our not owed taxes. WE NO LONGER WORK AS EMPLOYEES IT's 1099 OR NOTHING. as you probably guessed az treated us like criminals over this whole thing. the fines and interest were 2x the tax $

We have internet sites that generate sales orders that are filled in whatever state we are in at the time.It would be a nightmare to declare income in all those states.I think it best that we just maintain a low profile.

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"Life is not measured by the breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away!"

the problem was not that we had earned in az, it's it was our domisile. but you'll find that all states with income tax are the same. whether or not you know it you are the property of one of the 50 states. that state has a legal right to your every thing!

i just found another blog on gate keeping , guarding . www.theforkintheroad@wordpress.com its very up beet regarding iol field gate work. iknow if your thinking about gate guard jobs you'll be glad you checked this one out

i just found another blog on gate keeping , guarding . www.theforkintheroad@wordpress.com its very up beet regarding iol field gate work. iknow if your thinking about gate guard jobs you'll be glad you checked this one out

-- Edited by gatekeeper on Monday 29th of August 2011 07:08:54 PM

Mark,

It seems to be a bad link. I even tried copy and paste into another browser and got nothing.

I tried to pull up a website for LOMA and Gate Guarding but I couldn't get them to work . I am computer challenged for sure. I also want to know if any co. are hiring singles for these jobs.I am retired,have the fifth wheel ,don't think the remote part would bother me( not sure about snakes). Also someone posted " FHU" ,I have no idea what this means ,sorry for being such a pain.

hi everyone, i am a young 19 yrold from michigan and was interested in doing some gate guarding stuff in the south, was particularily looking at texas after a friend told me about the opportunities there... what would be the best place to apply to if i dont have an RV? i heard that there are places that will provide an RV but lower the pay, and i heard about places that require an RV but have a higher pay... what would you guys recommend? also, do any of these places give you internet with your RV? do these companies pay for your food or must you take this out of your pay? also, i know relatively nothing about RV's, what are some basic things i should know about RV's before embarking on a journey such as this one?

There are several co. listed in the posts. I have recently been in contact with Timekeepers Inc about single postions and found them easy to talk to and very informative. I personally have not heard about anyone furnishing a place to stay but I'm very new to this so I can't comment. There is a phone # on Texas Tom Ts post for Sue ,thats who I talked too, I would say call her to get the straight scoop. Best of luck!!